Phoebe Kendall is just your typical Goth girl with a crush. He’s strong and silent…and dead.

All over the country, a strange phenomenon is occurring. Some teenagers who die aren’t staying dead. But when they come back to life, they are no longer the same. Feared and misunderstood, they are doing their best to blend into a society that doesn’t want them.
The administration at Oakvale High attempts to be more welcoming of the “differently biotic.” But the students don’t want to take classes or eat in the cafeteria next to someone who isn’t breathing. And there are no laws that exist to protect the “living impaired” from the people who want them to disappear—for good.
When Phoebe falls for Tommy Williams, the leader of the dead kids, no one can believe it; not her best friend, Margi, and especially not her neighbor, Adam, the star of the football team. Adam has feelings for Phoebe that run much deeper than just friendship; he would do anything for her. But what if protecting Tommy is the one thing that would make her happy?

My Thoughts:

Generation Dead isn’t your typical zombie book. You won’t find rotting corpses nor do the zombies hunt their living counterparts. They may as well be just like you and me, only dead and slower in their speech and movements.
Phoebe, our main character is a goth, which in this book is kinda odd; seeing as there are dead kids in her school. For some unknown reason the youth of America has been coming back after they die. In Generation Dead, there is no rhyme or reason as to why this is going on, nor does anyone understand why certain teens come back and others don’t. And it is only the teens that are coming back, no zombie adults here! The town of Oakvale seems to be one of the best places for the “living impaired” to be, seeing as they are allowed to attend school at Oakvale High.
Tommy Williams is the “living impaired” kid that Phoebe becomes intrigued by. At first she doesn’t want to be anything more than his friend, and even then her “live” friends are kinda iffy about that. Margi is Phoebe’s best girlfriend and while she is goth like Phoebe, she wants almost nothing to do with the dead kids. Adam is a football player and while him and Phoebe are friends and neighbors, they don’t really hang out or talk much at school in the beginning. Adam is realizing that what he feels for Phoebe may just be something more than friendship, and he doesn’t really like the fact that she is starting to like Tommy, although he is more accepting of it and the dead kids than Margi is.
There is a lot of drama, normal teen-angst and romance in the book, and while most of the obvious questions don’t get answered in this installment, I feel confident that we will begin to get some answers int he next two books. The writing is amazing and I could really see the “living impaired’ in my head. I felt as though I was at most of the places that the kids all ended up and experiencing what they were. It isn’t often that i can get sucked into a book so much that I dream about it, but Generation Dead had me dreaming of Adam and Tommy on the football field for their one game, and dreams of Homecoming with Phoebe in her “moonlight” inspired dress.
I am impatiently searching and waiting for the remaining two books in the series and can’t wait to get my hands on them, especially after the sad but happy ending of Generation Dead.